


war is over (if you want it)

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2015: Siblings, Husbands, Lovely Ladies, and Other Miscreants [17]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Permanent Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soldiers, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, War Veteran Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky volunteers at the VA hospital to help decorate the rooms of injured vets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	war is over (if you want it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts).



> day seventeen | prompt: chestnut
> 
>  
> 
> if you think this is the last time i will write bucky barnes crocheting or knitting, you are so, so wrong.

Bucky had spent close to two months at the Brooklyn Veterans Hospital last year, recovering from an injury he’d received in the Afghan War that had nearly taken his left arm and trying to wrap his head around the fact that the war was over, at least for him.

Fast forward to eighteen months later, where he is sharing an apartment with his friend Natasha and working at the VA, leading a PTSD support group. He’s not all better, but he’s working on it, every single day. 

His buddy Sam told him the hospital had been looking for volunteers to spend some time with injured vets still at the hospital on Christmas Eve, and Bucky had jumped at the chance to help.

He doesn’t think about the fact that he’s avoiding being home alone on Christmas, that he’s been slipping into his own head more and more lately, realizing that he’d run off nearly everyone in those dark months right after he’d gotten released.

He just puts a soft red sweater on over a black henley, makes sure his hair is clean and tugged back in a loose ponytail, and takes the train down to the VA on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. 

It’s annoyingly warm, and he has his sleeves pushed up by the time he steps into the hospital, giving a nod to Sharon, the nurse who had helped him during his recovery with the patience of a saint.

“Thanks for doing this,” she says with a smile, handing him a clipboard and a Santa hat. “Here’s a list of names and room numbers. These are guys who have been injured and diagnosed with PTSD. Fury thinks you’ll be great with them.”

“I think Fury’s gotten a little optimistic in his old age,” Bucky mumbles as he reads over the short list of names. He tucks the clipboard under his arm and looks back up at Sharon. “So… what am I doin’, exactly?”

“We’re decorating their rooms. Wreaths, garland, lights, that kind of thing. Just something to make them smile, get them in the holiday spirit. All the decorations are in the breakroom on the third floor. After that, we’ll get them down to the cafeteria for the dinner. Some of them can’t move around too well, so if they want to just stay in their room, we can bring them a plate. Then we’ll hand out the stockings we’ve put together for them.”

“Easy enough,” he replies, frowning down at the Santa hat before he stuffs it into the back pocket of his black skinny jeans. 

“Sam said, um,” Sharon starts, seeming a little uncharacteristically nervous, “that you brought some gifts to add to the stockings?”

“Oh,” Bucky says, ignoring the heat on his cheeks and gripping the strap of his bag tight. “Yeah.”

Sharon smiles, sweet and understanding, too earnest for Bucky’s self-deprecating cynicism. He lowers his eyes and digs his fingernail into the corner of the clipboard he’s holding. He can’t feel too well with his left hand even still, probably never will, but he can still fidget well enough with it.

“I think it’s great. Lots of vets crochet to help them deal with PTSD and mobility. It’s--”

“You don’t have to sell me on it, Share,” he tells her, smirking as he takes a step back from the nurses station. “I even go to a crochet group. Me and a buncha old biddies. It’s fun.”

Sharon’s eyes widen gleefully.

“Please tell me there are pictures of this.”

If Bucky were still himself, he would smile at her. But he’s not, not yet anyway, and so his smirk is all she gets.

“Later, Sharon.”

“Bye, James.” She waves at him and turns her attention to the phone ringing. He hurries to catch the elevator and looks over the clipboard again, memorizing the names with the room numbers so he won’t need to carry it around the whole time.

His first stop is a guy named Clint Barton who seems to be doing pretty well despite the fact that a blast had damaged his eardrums, rendering him completely deaf. He smiles in spite of the long, stitched-up incisions behind his ears and orders Bucky around the room in an unnecessarily loud voice on where to put the shiny paper stars and the red garland.

Bucky kinda likes him.

The next guy is Tony Stark, a guy who is apparently looked at as some kind of miracle around here, who had survived having his chest nearly blown open, had gone through a whopping six heart surgeries, and is still in good enough spirits to quip with Bucky the entire time he’s in his room. Tony’s girlfriend Pepper is there, and she chides Tony for every vulgar joke he makes while she helps Bucky string up lights and hang a jointed, rosy-cheeked paper Santa on the wall.

Thor Odinson is a massive blond guy with tiredly cheerful eyes and almost too much politeness to be a soldier. He’d stepped into some kind of trap and gotten electrocuted, thousands of volts jolting through his system and stopping his heart for four terrifying minutes. He’d told Bucky everything while helping him decorate the room, apparently too restless to just lounge around and watch. 

Bucky nods at a tall, pale, dark-haired man with a quirky smile who steps into Thor’s room just as he’s leaving, laden down with a stack of gifts and making Thor absolutely beam at just the sight of him.

It makes him very quietly happy to see other soldiers who like men, who are happy with men. It gives him a tiny, fragile hope for his future.

Steve Rogers is the last guy on his list, and he realizes that he’s down to the bare minimum as far as decorations go. He puts his coat back on and ventures out into the world again, seeking out the nearest Target. He loads the cart up with more garland and lights and after some deliberating, a little 3-foot Christmas tree and small ornaments to put on it. 

Wouldn’t hurt to go all out, right?

He hauls all his bags into the hospital again, ignoring Sharon’s raised eyebrows as he shuffles past. He gets his shit together, strips off the red sweater, and ventures back down the quietly-lit, sterile hallway and stops in front of Steve Rogers’s open door, knocking on it before poking his head in.

There’s a tall, blonde drink of water climbing out of his bed, his right leg banded up with thick white gauze, and Bucky sees him just in time to watch him nearly fall when he tries to stand up.

“Hey! Whoa, whoa, wait. Hold on.” He drops all his bags and rushes into the room, grabbing Steve’s bicep with his right hand and trying to keep him on his feet. “What the fuck are you doin’, man?”

“Tired of being in this bed,” the man says, his face dark and pinched in pain, and the way he’s still trying to keep his weight off of Bucky tells Bucky all he needs to know about this man and his stubbornness.

That’s okay. Bucky can be a stubborn sonofabitch, too.

“Listen, I get that. Believe me, I do. But falling on your ass and ripping open whatever you got under that bandage there ain’t gonna help you get out of this place faster, will it?”

Steve hesitates, and Bucky grits his teeth as he forces his left hand to close around Steve’s forearm for extra support. The man finally sighs and sinks down on the edge of the bed, and Bucky can’t help that he lets out his own sigh, his one of relief instead of defeat.

“Who’re you?” Steve finally says under his breath, his head tipped down, his hair messy and greasy and a blonde that makes Bucky think of the sunrise he’d seen this morning from his balcony, sleepless and curled up in his ex-boyfriend and fallen comrade Brock’s hoodie.

Nobody had survived the explosion that almost taken Bucky’s arm but him. Not even his boyfriend.

He blinks himself back into the present, to Steve who is looking at him curiously now, his eyes blue as summer.

“Bucky,” he finally says, letting go of Steve now that he’s sure he’s not trying to escape. “I’m, uh. I’m a counsellor here, but today I’m just helping out with decorations and dinner and all that.”

Steve nods, turning on the bed to face Bucky, his eyes trailing over his body in an assessing way that has Bucky taking a step back and wrapping his arms around himself.

“Where did you serve?” Steve asks, looking back up to try and meet Bucky’s eyes, but Bucky doesn’t really do eye contact very well. Not yet.

“Afghan War. Injured when a bomb detonated near our Humvee, killing the rest of my squad.” He blinks several times while he says it, his voice flat, almost bored. He talks about it a lot, doing what he does, but it’s only gotten minutely easier over the last year. 

Steve is watching him like he sees him, like he sees straight past and through the blockades that Bucky puts up the second he steps out of his apartment.

“Can I see your arm?” he asks gently, hands already up like he knows Bucky will say yes.

Bucky shrugs, taking off his fingerless gloves and pushing the sleeve up on his black henley, not looking at his hand when Steve’s come up to hold it, to turn it over and inspect it. It’s hideous and he knows it, it’s mangled and pocked with scar tissue, uneven with missing flesh and shiny with new skin. He looks up and away, out of Steve’s window at the failing light of the late afternoon.

He wonders if Steve finds it as disgusting as he does, if he wants to recoil but is maybe too nice to do so. When Steve doesn’t say anything for a long moment, doesn’t do anything but run slow fingers over Bucky’s arm, Bucky turns to look at him, his face carefully blank.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” he finally says, his fingers twitching under Steve’s that stroke over, so careful that it makes Bucky’s insides clench. He wants to pull away from him, to get those eyes off of the parts of himself he hates the most, wants Steve to stop being so tender with him because he doesn’t deserve it.

“At least you still have it,” Steve replies with a shrug, finally giving Bucky his hand back and looking down at his own pale, golden-haired thigh, at the thick bulk of gauze covering what is surely a horror. “That’s what my ma keeps tellin’ me.”

“Hey,” Bucky says suddenly, drawing Steve’s curious eyes up. “Listen, don’t tell nobody else, but I went out and got some Christmas reinforcements because truth be told, our selection is fuckin’ terrible. So guess what you ended up with?”

He waits for Steve to react, waits for him to look around with a face that is instantly younger looking, boyish.

“What?” Steve asks, helplessly eager.

Bucky goes back over to his fallen pile of bags and drags them into the room, standing up the big one and letting the bag fall away from it. 

“A treee,” Bucky singsongs in his rough, inelegant voice, but he’s almost smiling.

“Hey, that’s awesome,” Steve grins, almost looking bashful as he looks at it from under his lashes. “You didn’t have to do all that.”

“You wanna help? It’s just a little guy, so you can help me decorate from your wheelchair if you promise to be real careful. Deal?” He sets the bags down and starts rummaging through them, pulling out box after box of decorations. Steve watches him from the bed, squirming in what looks like barely contained joy.

“Deal,” he says, scooting closer to the edge of the bed just as Bucky nears him again, reaching out to help him. He lets himself enjoy the tight bulk of Steve’s muscular arms, the woodsy scent of his cologne (who wears cologne when they’re laid up in a hospital bed?), and the warmth that seeps from Steve’s body into his own.

Nobody would blame him for already having a little crush.

They decorate the tree in a companionable quiet, only speaking in hushed tones about the lights and where ornaments should go. Bucky hangs back and lets Steve hang the ornaments, letting him get lost in this little challenge. He knows intimately how relieving it can be to have something to focus on, to be given a task.

“You started physical therapy yet?” he asks, slowly gathering all the trash they’d manage to collect and shoving it into one of the empty bags.

“Two weeks,” Steve says, curving the hook on the candy cane ornament he’s holding, his long eyelashes flicking as he searches the tree for the perfect spot. “I’m about to go out of my goddamn mind, to tell you the truth.”

“You should go for walks,” Bucky tells him, letting Steve turn to him with a narrow-eyed, frankly bitchy expression on his face before he continues, one side of his mouth tugged up. “I mean, somebody walkin’ you in that chair. Just getting you out of here, at least once a day. Anybody doin’ that for you?”

“I don’t wanna be a bother,” Steve says, his face falling into that inward-curled sadness Bucky had seen when he first came in. “The hospital’s under-staffed right now. It’s not as important as the other stuff they’ve got going on.”

Bucky’s quiet for a minute, considering what he instinctively wants to do. Committing to anything is hard for him, always has been, and it’s only gotten worse since he got home. He chews on his bottom lip while he debates, and he gives a decisive nod as he hops up again, returning to Steve’s side.

“How about this,” he starts, handing him the next ornament, a frosted white star. “I come in at eleven every day to start my group sessions. How about I get here an hour earlier and we can take a stroll around the grounds? I need to get back into a routine, too.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve mumbles, his cheeks flushed a warm pink that almost matches his mouth. “I don’t want you to have to deal with… with all my shit. I’m sure you’re still trying to work out your own.”

“Well, who’s to say we can’t do it at the same time?” Bucky lifts a hand slowly, making sure to telegraph the movement as he rests it on Steve’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “C’mon. It’ll be good for both of us.”

“If you really don’t mind.” It’s so soft, so painfully, quietly grateful that Bucky can’t help that his grip tightens just a little on Steve’s tense shoulder.

“It’s a deal,” he tells him, unable to stop the smile that pulls on his mouth when Steve finally looks up at him. “Hey, listen. I’ve gotta go get everybody settled in down in the cafeteria for dinner. Would you mind if I wheeled you down there? I think it’ll be good for you to get out of this room for awhile.”

“My room’s just now lookin’ like somewhere I wanna be,” Steve says, his eyes brightening for the first time since Bucky met him. “But I guess, for awhile. Are, um. Are you gonna be eating, too?”

He hadn’t planned on it, but the way Steve is looking at him, the careful hope in his eyes, makes him reconsider.

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You won’t mind sitting with me, right? Keep me from lookin’ unpopular?”

“Like you could be unpopular with a face like that,” Steve tells him with what can only be a flirtatious smile, his eyebrows lifted as he leans forward.

“You flirtin’ with me, Rogers?” Bucky asks, ducking his head to hide the shy grin that spreads across his face. He steps up behind Steve, letting his hands drag across his shoulders before sliding down to the handles on the chair. “I bet you say that to all the guys.”

“Trust me, if they’d sent somebody in here as cute as you on the regular, I wouldn’t have been trying to leave earlier.”

Bucky can smile now that it’s safe, now that Steve is facing away from him while he wheels him out of the room and down the hall, moving at a leisurely pace. He walks them into the elevator being held for them, slotting in next to a couple of nurses. He leans down, speaking quietly against Steve’s ear.

“Just remembered the mistletoe I found in all the decorations. I’d hang it up over your bed, but I don’t want anybody else thinkin’ they can kiss you,” he says, feeling Steve’s skin heat up.

The doors open and they all file out, and Bucky can tell that Steve is outright grinning just as much as he is himself.

Sharon walks by with a stack of plates and nearly drops them when she glances over at Bucky.

“...James? Are you okay?” She steps closer to him, squinting at his face. “Are you high?”

Bucky laughs, can’t help it, and he nudges her away gently with the curve of his bad shoulder.

“What? I can’t smile?” he asks, the smile not disappearing even after it’s been called out. He lets the crooked curve of his finger slide very gently against the back of Steve’s neck, not wanting him to feel ignored.

“It’s a Christmas miracle!” Sharon exclaims, throwing Steve a wink before continuing on into the dining hall.

“C’mon,” he says to Steve, following Sharon into the room. “I’ll give you my share of sweet potatoes.”

 

They share a meal for the first time, one full of Steve’s socked feet touching Bucky’s shins, shy smiles through lashes, and lots of give and take of food between their plates. When the time comes to hand out stockings to the vets, Bucky makes sure Steve gets the best one, the one with the warm, wool cap he’d crocheted in a deep blue that would go perfectly with Steve’s eyes, the one full of sensible things like shaving cream and batteries and socks and a _Hustler_ magazine that Bucky walks over and hands to Sharon in front of the girl Maria she’s been crushing on for months.

He and Steve had retreated quickly after that, hiding from Sharon’s glowering gaze and Maria’s amused smile.

Bucky turns the lights off in Steve’s room after helping him into the bathroom to get washed up and changed before bed. The lights are shining bright and lovely on the tree in the corner, and Steve is quiet with a tiny smile on his face as Bucky helps him back into bed.

“So,” Bucky sighs, leaning over to help fluff up Steve’s pillow behind him and making sure he’s tucked in, “how was your first Christmas at the VA? As terrible as you’d expected?”

“The turkey was dry,” Steve replies after a pause, looking thoughtful as Bucky settles into the chair next to the bed. Bucky smirks at him, leaning forward to stay close to Steve, as close as they seem to already prefer to be with each other. “And I lost my Walk-Man to play that Willie Nelson tape on about fifteen years ago--”

“You had a Walk-Man fifteen years ago?” Bucky interrupts, his eyebrows raised dramatically.

Steve grins, reaching over to grab Bucky’s sleeve and tug him closer. Bucky goes willingly, his smile softening as Steve searches his eyes.

“Please don’t tell me I’m reading this wrong,” Steve says quietly, strong fingers sliding up Bucky’s bad arm, rubbing it through the thin cotton fabric of his shirt in a way that has tears burning in Bucky’s eyes.

“What part of I don’t want anybody else kissin’ you don’t you understand?” Bucky replies, leaning even closer now, smelling the warm, spicy cider on Steve’s breath that they’d snuck rum into. He glances down at Steve’s pink, pink mouth and back up into his eyes, amazed at how calm he is, how steady his heartbeat, how… not nervous he is to be this close to Steve. It’s something he couldn’t have fathomed only five hours ago.

“I haven’t…” Steve starts, letting out a sigh that rushes warmth over Bucky’s already heated face. “I haven’t had anybody in so long.”

“I told you, Stevie,” Bucky says, quiet and just for them, “I think this is gonna be good for both of us.”

“Hey, Bucky?” Steve’s eyes are so big, so deep-sea blue in the low light of the room that Bucky feels like he’s drowning.

“Hm?”

“Do you have a good imagination?”

Bucky shrugs with his good shoulder.

“It ain’t bad. It’s gotten better since it’s just be me and my hand for the last year or so.”

Steve smiles, just a tiny flash of white teeth.

“Can you pretend there’s mistletoe up there on the ceiling?” He nods up but doesn’t break eye contact. Bucky leans in so close he’s practically laying on Steve, his chest pressed along his ribs. He slides a hand over Steve’s chest and holds onto him, savoring the heat of him, the solidity of his firm body.

“Only if you promise to kiss me as good as you’ve been thinkin’ about all evening,” Bucky whispers, barely getting the words out before his mouth is taken in a kiss that’s so immediately delicious, so intense that his toes curl in his boots.

He sighs when he feels Steve’s hand come up to cup the side of his head, his fingers slipping along his cheek, tucking a dark chestnut lock of hair behind his ear before tickling down the curve of his ear, drawing a shiver from Bucky, making him press even closer.

“You should go,” Steve mumbles, his forehead resting against Bucky’s, smiling against his mouth. “Don’t want you bein’ out too late tonight.”

“Maybe I could stay here?” he replies, his arm tightening around Steve, ready to climb into the fucking bed with him even if he rationally knows it could never hold two men their size. 

Steve grins, their noses rubbing together like they’re kids or kittens or in love. It makes Bucky’s knees knock.

“Maybe you can come back in the morning so we can start our walk? And maybe I can smuggle my laptop in and we can watch your favorite Christmas movie."

Steve raises his eyebrows.

"Do you think _Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Killer Mutant Snowman_ is _on_ Netflix?" he asks in a childish whisper, barely containing his grin. 

Bucky snorts.

“I think maybe we can track it down. But... you really don’t mind me coming on Christmas Day?” Bucky pulls back to meet Steve’s eyes, searching for the truth there before he even starts talking.

“You know,” Steve sighs, thumb stroking over the soft curve of Bucky’s jaw, “I think maybe we both need it.”

 

Bucky is grinning when he walks into the hospital the next morning, and he even tosses a stunned Sharon a wink on his way up to Steve’s room.

He thinks he finally understands the phrase “today is the first day of the rest of your life.”


End file.
